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Erechtheus

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Archaic king of Athens

Erechtheus (/ɪˈrɛkθjuːs,-θiəs/;Ancient Greek:Ἐρεχθεύς) inGreek mythology was aking of Athens, the founder of thepolis and, in his role as god, attached toPoseidon, as "Poseidon Erechtheus". The nameErichthonius is carried by a son of Erechtheus, butPlutarch conflated the two names in the myth of the begetting of Erechtheus.^[1]

Erechtheus I

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Main article:Erichthonius of Athens

Athenians thought of themselves asErechtheidai, the "sons of Erechtheus".^[2] InHomer'sIliad (2. 547–48) Erechtheus is the son of "grain-giving Earth", reared byAthena.^[3] The earth-born son was sired byHephaestus, whose semen Athena wiped from her thigh with afillet of wool cast to earth, by whichGaia was made pregnant.

In the contest for patronage of Athens between Poseidon and Athena, the salt spring on theAcropolis where Poseidon's trident struck was known as thesea of Erechtheus.^[4]

Erechtheus II, king of Athens

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Family

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The second Erechtheus was given a historicizing genealogy as son and heir to KingPandion I of Athens byZeuxippe, this Pandion being son of Erichthonius. This later king Erechtheus may be distinguished as Erechtheus II. His siblings werePhilomela,Procne,Butes and possiblyTeuthras.^[5]

Erechtheus was father, by his wifePraxithea, of sons:Cecrops,Pandorus,Metion^[6] and of six daughters, the eldest wasProtogeneia,Pandora,Procris,Creusa,Oreithyia andChthonia.^[7] Sometimes, his other mentioned children wereOrneus,^[8]Thespius,^[9]Eupalamus,^[10]Sicyon^[11] andMerope.^[12]

Relation	Names	Sources
Relation	Names	Hesiod	Diodorus	Apollodorus	Plutarch	Hyginus	Pausanias	Stephanus	Suida
Parents	Pandion and Zeuxippe			✓
Parents	Pandion						✓
Siblings	Procne			✓
	Philomela			✓
	Butes			✓
	Cephalus					✓
	Teuthras							✓
Wife	Praxithea			✓
Children	Cecrops			✓			✓
	Eupalamus		✓
	Pandorus			✓
	Metion			✓			✓
	Orneus						✓	✓
	Sicyon	✓					✓
	Thespius		✓
	Protogeneia								✓
	Pandora								✓
	Procris			✓			✓		✓
	Creusa			✓			✓	✓	✓
	Orithyia		✓	✓					✓
	Chthonia			✓					✓
	Merope				✓

According toPseudo-Apollodorus, Erechtheus II had a twin brother named Butes who married Erechtheus' daughter Chthonia, the "earth-born". The brothers divided the royal power possessed by Pandion, Erechtheus taking the physical rule but Butes taking the priesthood of Athena and Poseidon, this right being passed on to his descendants. This lateorigin myth oraition justified and validated the descent of the hereditary priesthood of the Boutidai family.

Reign

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His reign was marked by the war between Athens andEleusis, when the Eleusinians were commanded byEumolpus, coming fromThrace. An oracle declared that Athens' survival depended on the death of one of the three daughters of Erechtheus. Perhaps this means the three unmarried daughters. In one version it is Chthonia, the youngest, whom he sacrifices. In another, it is both Protogeneia and Pandora, the two eldest, who offer themselves up. In any case the remaining sisters (exceptingOrithyia who had been kidnapped byBoreas), or at least some of them, are said to kill themselves. The story of the unfortunate daughters of Erechtheus is comparable to those of the daughters ofHyacinthus of Lacedaemon, and of the daughters ofLeos.

In the following battle between the forces of Athens and Eleusis, Erechtheus won the battle and slew Eumolpus, but then himself fell, struck down by Poseidon's trident.^[13] According to fragments ofEuripides' tragedyErechtheus, Poseidon avenged his son Eumolpus' death by driving Erechtheus into the earth with blows of his trident,^[14]

The ending lines of Euripides' tragedy were recovered in 1965 from a papyrus fragment.^[15] They demonstrate for Burkert^[16] that "the founding of the Erechtheum and the institution of the priestess of Athena coincide." Athena resolves the action by instructing Erichtheus' widow Praxithea:

...and for your husband I command a shrine to be constructed in the middle of the city; he will be known for him who killed him, under the name of 'sacred Poseidon'; but among the citizens, when the sacrificial cattle are slaughtered, he shall also be called 'Erechtheus'. To you, however, since you have rebuilt the city's foundations, I grant the duty of bringing in the preliminary fire-sacrifices for the city, and to be called my priestess.^[17]^[18]

In the Athenian king-list,Xuthus, the son-in-law of Erechtheus, was asked to choose his successor from among his many sons and chose Cecrops II, named for the mythic founder-kingCecrops. Thus Erechtheus is succeeded by Cecrops II, his brother, according to a fragment from the poet Casto. But according topseudo-Apollodorus^[19] he was succeeded by his son.

Regnal titles
Preceded by Pandion I	King of Athens	Succeeded by Cecrops II

Erechtheion

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The central gods of theAcropolis of Athens werePoseidon Erechtheus andAthena Polias, "Athena patron-guardian of the city".^[20] TheOdyssey (VII.81) already records that Athena returned to Athens and "entered the strong-built house of Erechtheus". The archaic joint temple built upon the spot that was identified as theKekropion, the hero-grave of the mythic founder-kingCecrops^[21] and theserpent that embodied his spirit was destroyed by the Persian forces in 480 BC, during theGreco-Persian wars, and was replaced between 421 and 407 BC by the presentErechtheum. Continuity of the site made sacred by the presence of Cecrops is inherent in the reference inNonnus'Dionysiaca to the Erechtheion lamp as "the lamp of Cecrops".^[22] Priests of the Erechtheum and the priestess of Athena jointly took part in the procession to Skiron that inaugurated theSkira festival near the end of theAthenian year. Their object was thetemenos at Skiron of the hero-seer Skiros, who had aidedEumolpus in the war between Athens and Eleusis in which Erechtheus II, the hero-king, was both triumphant and died.

That Poseidon and Erechtheus were two names at Athens for the same figure (see below) was demonstrated in thecult at the Erechtheum, where there was a single altar, a single priest and sacrifices were dedicated toPoseidon Erechtheus,Walter Burkert observed,^[23] adding "An historian would say that a Homeric, pan-Hellenic name has been superimposed on anautochthonous, non-Greek name."

Swinburne's Erechtheus

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Swinburne's classical tragedy Erechtheus was published in 1876. He uses the framework of the classical myth to express the republican and patriotic ideals that preoccupied him at this era.^[24]

Notes

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^Plutarch,Moralia 843b
^Euripides,Medea824
^R. M. Frazer, Jr., "Some Notes on the Athenian Entry, Iliad B 546-56"Hermes97.3 (1969), pp. 262–266, observes in this displacement a submerged memory of Athena's lost role as a mother-goddess "by becoming strictly a virgin". (p 262); compare Wolfgang Fauth,Der Kleine Pauly (1954),s.v. "Athena"; a contrasting view isMartin P. Nilsson,Geschichte der Griechischen Religion, vol I, pt 2 (Munich, 1955) pp 442ff.
^Apollodorus,3.14.1, noted byKarl Kerenyi,The Heroes of the Greeks (1959), p. 211; Kerenyi narrates myths of Erechtheus pp 21–46.
^Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v.Thespeia (Θέσπεια)
^Apollodorus,3.15.1
^Suida, s.v.Maidens, Virgins (Παρθένοι)
^Pausanias,2.25.6;Plutarch,Theseus32.1; Stephanus of Byzantium, s.v.Orneiai (Ὀρνειαί)
^Diodorus Siculus,4.29.2
^Diodorus Siculus,4.76.1
^Pausanias,2.6.5, citingHesiod (Ehoiai fr. 224) for Erechtheus
^Plutarch,Theseus19.5
^The alternative, that Zeus slew him with a thunderbolt at Poseidon's request, simply sets the action at a remove, magnifying a universal role for Zeus.
^Euripides,Ion281. Another figure who was killed by driving him into the earth by repeated blows wasCaeneus the Lapith.
^Colin Austin, inRecherches de Papyrologie4 (1967);Nova fragmenta Euripidea (1968) frs.65.90-97.
^Burkert (Peter Bing, tr.)Homo Necans (1983) p. 149.
^Praxithea ("cult of the Goddess") had assented to the sacrifice of her own daughter before the battle.
^Peter Bing's English rendering of Burkert's translation.
^Apollodorus,3.15.1
^Walter Burkert (Peter Bing, tr.)Homo Necans 1983:144 remarked of theSkira procession "The priests are those of the central gods of the Acropolis: Poseidon-Erechtheus and Athena Polias".
^That the Erechtheion is built on the site of the "alleged tomb, the Kekropion" is noted in passing even in a work as general asKarl Kerenyi,The Heroes of the Greeks, 1959:213. The Kekropion is securely identified as lying beneath the Porch of the Maidens of the existing Erechtheum. The imprint of a small but vanished enclosure against the east foundation was analyzed by Holland, inAmerican Journal of Archaeology (AJA)28 1924:161f. No foundations for an actual temple structure have been discovered beneath the Erechtheum itself: William Bell Dinsmoor summarizes the archaeology in "The Hekatompedon on the Athenian Acropolis"AJA V51.2 (April–June 1947:109 note 4, 120 note 59.
^Nonnus, 33.124, noted byOlga Palagia, "A Niche for Kallimachos' Lamp?"American Journal of Archaeology,88.4 (October 1984:515-521) p. 519 and note 15.
^Walter Burkert (Peter Bing, tr.)Homo Necans 1983, p. 149 gives references for this observation.
^John A Walsh- an Introduction to Algernon Charles Swinburne: Indiana 2012

References

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Apollodorus,The Library with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website.
Diodorus Siculus,The Library of History translated byCharles Henry Oldfather. Twelve volumes.Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. Vol. 3. Books 4.59–8.Online version at Bill Thayer's Web Site
Diodorus Siculus,Bibliotheca Historica. Vol 1-2. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich Vogel. in aedibus B. G. Teubneri. Leipzig. 1888-1890.Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Euripides,The Complete Greek Drama, edited by Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O'Neill Jr. in two volumes. 1. Ion, translated by Robert Potter. New York. Random House. 1938.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Euripides,Euripidis Fabulae.vol. 2. Gilbert Murray. Oxford. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1913.Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Euripides,Medea with an English translation by David Kovacs. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1994.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website.
Homer,The Iliad with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, Ph.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1924.ISBN 978-0674995796.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Homer,Homeri Opera in five volumes. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1920.ISBN 978-0198145318.Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus,Lives with an English Translation by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1914. 1.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website.
Nonnus of Panopolis,Dionysiaca translated by William Henry Denham Rouse (1863–1950), from the Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1940.Online version at the Topos Text Project.
Nonnus of Panopolis,Dionysiaca. 3 Vols. W.H.D. Rouse. Cambridge, MA., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1940–1942.Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Pausanias,Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.ISBN 0-674-99328-4.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
Pausanias,Graeciae Descriptio.3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903.Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
Stephanus of Byzantium,Stephani Byzantii Ethnicorum quae supersunt, edited by August Meineike (1790–1870), published 1849. A few entries from this important ancient handbook of place names have been translated by Brady Kiesling.Online version at the Topos Text Project.
Suida,Suda Encyclopedia translated by Ross Scaife, David Whitehead, William Hutton, Catharine Roth, Jennifer Benedict, Gregory Hays, Malcolm Heath Sean M. Redmond, Nicholas Fincher, Patrick Rourke, Elizabeth Vandiver, Raphael Finkel, Frederick Williams, Carl Widstrand, Robert Dyer, Joseph L. Rife, Oliver Phillips and many others.Online version at the Topos Text Project.

External links

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Media related toErechtheus at Wikimedia Commons

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